How to create the perfect pop-up form with Sleeknote

If you’re like most marketers, growing a list of engaged subscribers and leads for your business in an ongoing process. For this post, we partnered with our friends from Sleeknote to show you how to use a pop-up or slide-in form to grow your list and get more leads.

What’s a pop-up form/slide-in?

Pop-up forms and slide-ins are some of the most effective ways to collect relevant leads for your business. You have the opportunity to convert visitors to subscribers, which you can then nurture to become customers for your brand, products or services. Unfortunately, pop-ups don’t have the best reputation, simply because they may not have been used well in the past. But that’s all changing with new apps that allow you to create pop-ups and slide-ins with the right targeting, ensuring they’ll be effective while not annoying your website visitors.

The value of your pop-up form

It’s important to emphasize the value your visitor receives if he or she signs up for your email list via your pop-up. You have to provide a good answer to “what’s in it for me?” If your company is in the services, consulting or agency business, typically your value will be in the form of a guide or some content that subscribers can access for free. Often businesses will offer some kind of discount code when someone signs up for their list as an added incentive.

When to pop-up

There are ever-increasing numbers of companies using pop-ups as effective lead generation tools, and there are different options that enable you to customize your pop-up depending on your target group and business.

But when is the ideal time for your pop-up to pop-up?

Sleeknote recommends your pop-up be shown after 7 seconds. But as we know in marketing, there is no one-size-fits-all answer for every business, so you have the ability to define the slide-in timeframe, and of course, you can run an A/B split-test, to prove what timing and position are the most optimal for your target demographics.

3 ways to optimize your pop-up form

Based on over six months of split testing on over 100 million sessions, Sleeknote has determined that slide-in forms placed in the bottom right or left corner of your site often get the best results. In addition, forms with the following content tend to perform well:

Minimal fields. The most effective forms stick to just a few fields of information, as completions tends to drop off as you add more fields. Define a primary goal for your form. For most companies, this is collecting visitors’ email address.

Offer an incentive. Provide something of value beyond content to get your subscribers excited such as a gift card, giveaway or discount.

Keep your form succinct. Don’t overwhelm your potential subscriber with heaps of text. Tell them what to expect and when.

Get your best pop-up results by A/B testing

Gift certificate vs. news, discount and social proof

Livingshop sells applied art, design furniture, lighting solutions and interior design services online. Their target demographic consists of design-conscious people, who love to get updates about the latest trends and offers. This is why it was important for Livingshop to try a number of different tests for their call to action and message.

The first test was on content and visitors motivation to sign up through a slide-in, placed in the bottom right corner of the page. They tested “Win a xx value DKK gift certificate” versus “Get our news and best discounts, first.” Besides that, they also used social proof in the form of “Do what over 30,000 others already have done.” The split test was based on 100,000 views for both options.

The results? The call to action using the specific value gift certificate was 3.5% more successful.

Image versus no image

The next test that Livingshop conducted was another iteration on the first test, but they added an image to the winning copy from the first test. The split test was based on 100,000 views on both options.

The results? The test with the image is the clear winner. if you want heightened success with your call to action, an image can be a powerful complement. Try A/B testing for yourself and your target demographic to ensure that you’re using the best message possible to maximize your conversions.

How to keep your pop-up from being annoying

We’ve all experienced an irritating pop-up at some point and time. You know, the ones that gave pop-ups a bad name back in the day. Sleeknote has solved the problem of annoying pop-ups by offering a range of cookie settings, to help avoid irritating your visitors. Use these tips:

Give them a tease. If a visitor closes the form, they can be shown a teaser in the bottom of the site which can be opened at any time. You can see how many visitors sign up after having closed the form.

Keep it closed. If the form is closed, it will not reopen during the same visit/session.

Give it a limit. It’s essential to set a limit for your form. All Sleeknote pop-ups are created with a default limit on four exits from a single person. After this, the visitor will never see it again. You can also modify this to your needs.

Don’t show it again. Finally, if a visitor signs up, they are counted as converted and will not see the form again.

Some additional tips include:

If you’re using a timer, set it to at least five seconds.

Make sure your form is not shown during checkout, receipt pages or other conversion points. After all, you don’t want to interrupt potential customers during the process of buying.

Avoid more than one pop-up on the site at one time. You can easily have a slide-in and pop-up on the same site, but never two different pop-ups.

Wrap up

Pop-ups and slide-in forms are a great way to grow your list and get more leads. Keep your target demographic in mind when selecting your form’s behavior, messaging, and incentive. When in doubt, go for a simple form with a clear call to action.